Frankenstein's Monster (15 page)

The undated letters became disjointed. I read the brief letter summoning Margaret to the whaling museum; in what must be the next one, he blamed her for letting me escape:

This, written on a scrap of paper:

Finally the letter that set me trembling:

I have not left the cave in days. Both sorrow and wrath consume me afresh.

At night I hear the hounds and know that Lily is out running. She has been harsh to me, she is Walton’s niece, and the callousness of his letters urges me to act. Still, I pace the length of my hellish red cave.

Why do I procrastinate? I must take my revenge or quit this place at once.

I do neither.

Tonight, after hesitating hours at the top of the cliff, I walked to the house.

It was past midnight. Stalking the grounds, I saw Lily hurrying to the stables with the unleashed dogs. Both she and the dogs panted heavily. Winterbourne was right. She was running herself to exhaustion.

I waited for Lily to return from penning the dogs. She saw me at once, as if she had been waiting for me. She was beautiful, like one of the Three Graces in the garden statuary, her hair undone, her pleasure genuine; and, like one of the Three Graces, about to give me a gift.

“Victor!” she said. She touched my arm, my chest; gently took my hand, turned it this way and that, and looked at it with wonder. “It’s been so long I was beginning to think I had dreamt you.”

“A week’s passing is enough to turn me into a dream?”

“Merely a week? I’ve been ill. I did not realize how little time had passed.”

I took the lantern from her and held it up. She did not look ill; indeed, her color was high from running with the hounds. But there was sadness and resignation on her face.

“Are you well now?” I asked.

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

Pulling her cape tighter, she spoke in a frightened whisper: “How shall I describe it? A worm eats at me from the inside.”

“What do you mean?”

“A parasite. It feasts on me.”

“I’ve seen these things bleed life from even the strongest
of men,” I said, greatly troubled by her words. “Did you send for a doctor?”

“Should I be seen by a man, so that later he may boast of it? No, I went to see old Biddy Josephs. She gave me all manner of physic, but …” Lily shook her head. “Today my father at last saw I was sickly and called the doctor himself. The doctor was delicate for my sake and called it a mere illness. Then he closeted himself with my parents. I fear the words that will be spoken tomorrow.” Her eyes grew unfocused. “It is too late. My time is short and my life is no longer my own.”

I had come to England to kill this woman. An illness might do the work for me. If it did, Gregory Winterbourne would be beyond sorrow.

And what of me? What would I feel if I lost her?

“Your words grieve me more than I can say.”

“Can I have such power over you?” Her mood lightened and she laughed. “I must devise some test of this power to see if you speak true. Kneel before me, knave!”

I knelt. She traced the scars on my face, softly at first, then with growing firmness. I submitted to the exploration, remembering she had tried to touch me the same way the night we met, before we ever spoke. For the sake of her beauty I allowed it, for the sake of her illness, for the sake of the sudden ruttish thoughts that had not crept into my mind since Mirabella.

Apparently satisfied, Lily leaned close. I took her arms; her flesh was soft and yielding beneath the cape.

“Speak the truth, Victor Hartmann,” she said. Breath like perfumed silk warmed me to desire. “What does it feel like to be dead?”

I pushed her away. She clung to me, holding me down, as if she had the strength to do it.

“We all die,” she said. “I will die. It is surely coming, but I cannot comprehend it. You have already been dead. You come from death. What does it feel like?”

She asked the question not with fear but fervor. I finally saw in her the disease of which Winterbourne spoke; finally saw the emotional disease, just as I learned of the physical. She was being devoured in mind and in body.

“What does it feel like?” she repeated.

It felt like death to come from death. There is no faculty left untormented: for smell, there is the breath of mold; for sight, the opaque blackness of the grave; for sound, the gnaw of teeth on coffin wood; for touch, the jelly of corruption; for taste, the bitter rot of one’s own body. This was death. And she was eager to know it.

She shook her head, impatient at my silence.

“Answer me.”

Bringing her face closer still, she shook her head again, this time slowly, letting her hair brush my cheek in exquisite torture. Seconds after her words had repelled me, I would be a man after all, full of denial and with a memory no longer than my last sensation.

From behind us came a faint sound, like dry twigs whispering against each other.

“Someone’s there,” she said and tried to pull away.

“It’s the wind,” I said softly. I would not release her. She smelled of roses; her skin was as soft as their fallen petals.

Again from behind us, this time closer: a faint sound, like dry scrub rustling.

“Let me go. I tell you: someone’s there.”

“You wanted to know what death feels like. Would you leave before I tell you?”

Sadness and resignation returned to her face.

“There are many ways to know death, Victor Hartmann.
Many times, many places. We each find our own. We each are found.”

Now, when she pulled away, I let her. As soon as she was free, she picked up the lantern and blew out the flame.

All day I brooded on Lily’s words: her time is short and she will die. Is her illness that serious? Her father will suffer so! And what of me?

I decided I could not wait to wrest the truth from her; indeed, I may not succeed in doing so. Under evening’s first shadow I walked down the shore, climbed the cliff at another point, and, cloaked and hooded, entered Tarkenville.

The town was nearly deserted, despite the early hour, and I saw no one who might tell me where Biddy Josephs lived. As I turned down another street, staying in the shadows I heard a thunderous voice come from the church:
“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.”

I cautiously peered inside. Clothed in full vestments, Reverend Graham had just read a scripture verse to a nearly full church. After this forceful declamation, his voice unexpectedly dropped to a soft tone. His expression was one of loving adoration, which surprised me. From his manner at the Winterbourne party I might have expected harsh words on behalf of his harsh God. But his face was at peace. The gentility of his prayers, the murmured responses, the shuffle of feet as the people stood and kneeled and stood—all of these lulled me into a moment of quiet. I leaned against the wall beside the window and listened. It was not what they said, but how they said it that beguiled me. Too soon, it seemed, the prayers came to their end:
“Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord;
and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.”

I left quickly before the church began to empty out.

At last I came upon a man who told me that Biddy Josephs lived outside of town, deeper in the woods and far from other houses. I approached the lone cottage slowly. Both it and the large shed nearby were well lit, windows open to the night. Inside the shed, bundles of plants hung, leaves downward, from the rafters—some still fresh green, others a straw so brittle that a sharp glance might break it. Slices of long woody roots were threaded together and also hung to dry. Tables along the walls held more leaves spread in a single layer. A strange though not unpleasant mix of odors wafted out on the air.

The door to the shed was kicked open from the inside and a woman emerged. Though white haired and very old, she was tall and solidly built and moved with a brisk step, carrying a large jar made of glass too dark for me to see its contents.

“Shut the door, but don’t douse the fire. I have more work to do.”

I waited for whomever she was addressing.

“You there,” she said, half-turning. “In the shadows. Did you hear me? Or have you come to have your ears candled?” She walked to the cottage, banged on the door with her foot till it swung open, and entered. I shut the door to the shed and followed her to the threshold of the house.

“I hope you didn’t come alone,” the old woman said, setting the jar down before shelves full of more jars. “Or have you not heard? There was murder done last night.”

Murder
.

I froze. I was guilty before I had done the deed: the very word condemned me.

“A young boy was beaten to death. Jonathan Ridley. Did you know him? That’s why I say you shouldn’t walk alone in the woods. As for me, there are few that would bother the witch woman.”

“Biddy Josephs?” I asked.

“A man. Your quiet step deceived me.” She began to rearrange the jars, not bothering to look toward me as she spoke. “What can I get for you this evening, sir? A nice mix of valerian and hops to help you sleep?” She opened one of the jars and sniffed it. “Or devil’s bind to loosen your bowels? Be careful there: too much and it does indeed bind you.”

She looked my way and though my face was hidden, I stepped back.

“No, I think not devil’s bind after all,” she said slyly. “What brings a gentleman to Biddy Josephs in the shadows of dusk and keeps that man outside where I may not know him?” Turning back to her jars, her fingers paused lightly on several as she named them. “Coriander, fenugreek—these can be powerful aids for male potency. Hmm … The green shell of the walnut would be better.”

“It is not for myself that I come.”

“Your woman, then.”

It was strange to hear Lily so named.

“She is ill. She said she came to you already without finding relief.”

“Who is she?”

I hesitated.

“Have no fear, sir,” Biddy Josephs said. “I tell no one who visits me.”

“Lily Winterbourne.”

“So beautiful. Yes, she was here.”

“What did you treat her for?” I asked. Perhaps it was not as
serious as Lily had intimated. Perhaps there was hope for her yet and solace for her father.

“What did she tell
you
was her illness?”

“She said she had a parasite, an evil worm.”

“Indeed, it was wormwood I gave her. That and pennyroyal, hedge hyssop, shepherd’s purse. Some ergot would have been good, though I can work only with what the season and good friends bring me.”

“She said it is with her still.”

Biddy Josephs shook her head, her expression thoughtful as she stared into the shadow of my hood.

“Your voice, sir. I’ve never heard your accent here, have I?”

“I’ve been in Northumberland less than a month.”

“So short a time, and already you are in love with Lily Winterbourne.”

Love? I have never spoken the word, not even to Mirabella.

The old woman’s brow creased more deeply.

“There is nothing for you to do, sir. Go home and wait. Perhaps she may still recover. And if she doesn’t, you will have an opportunity to prove your love.”

She had confirmed the worst.

I returned to my cave. Earlier I had planned my supper to be a nice plump turnstone I had surprised when sunning itself. I have lost all appetite. Instead I have been writing until it is late enough to climb the cliff up to the estate.

Will Lily be waiting?

My foolishness cannot be measured.

Every night I have roamed the Winterbourne estate, hoping to find Lily.

I feel her more in her absence than in her presence. Everything is black without her. And yet, with her? She is too dark in spirit to be the sun. Still, she shines. She is, thus, the moon—although now, in her illness, the moon waning.

I come from death. She goes toward it.

Tonight there was a letter from her, wedged between the branches of the tree where she had left my cloak.

Lily regards me with some affection? She addressed me as “dearest” and closed with “fondly”? Have I ever seen evidence of these feelings? Perhaps, in my inhumanity, I have
simply not recognized them. Or perhaps, in her changeable mood, she has created another occasion for torment. I am fool enough to try to discover which.